With a new year upon us, many professionals in the digital media, marketing and advertising spaces are looking to see what's ahead for video. The answer is "contextual media." Looking back, the dynamic nature of digital publishing has enabled flexible and contextual delivery of messages and content in a way previously not possible when we were locked into the one-time printing of an ad on a page, or the scheduled broadcast of a television program.

At the recent UBS Media Conference, Glenn Britt, the CEO of Time Warner Cable, envisioned a world of the four "Anys" -- any content, any device, anytime and anyplace. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, for whoever imagined walking around with any book, on any device, any place at anytime? However, the dream not only appears to be technologically feasible, it strikes a chord among the long-tailed, proudly individualistic, Tivo-buying glitterati.

In the spirit of closing out 2009, here is my list of potential surprises in online video for 2010. You may find yourself in complete disagreement with some or all of them. And that's the point. If the entire industry is leaning in one direction, what will happen when and if the opposite occurs?

As we conclude the year and the decade, I think back to where I was at this point 10 years ago. I was working with publishers at one of the first and greatest display networks, and we were collaborating with our partners and vendors to ensure the Y2K bug wouldn't cause blank 468x60s and 120x90s to appear across the network. Unrealized doomsday fears aside, 1999 was a great time to enter the Internet ad business, and the intervening 10 years have taught me -- and many of us -- a lot about what really matters to the players in our ...

With last week's launch of the new VEVO Music Platform from Google/YouTube and Universal Music Group, significant questions and opportunities arise whose answers could be potentially game-changing, both for music video content and for the music labels as a whole. It also raises some fundamental questions for online publishers who have long relied on the labels to provide music video content to keep younger demos coming back.

Lately, I've been looking into the evolution of successful Internet companies. How did they succeed? Which factors were the game-changers for them? Earlier, I wrote an article that addressed a few of these issues, where I dove into why many successful Internet companies build or buy an ad network. Being in the online video business, I began to wonder: Is the same true for video networks? I think the answer is yes. Here's why